December Meeting

The December meeting was very exciting with amazing costumes . The ladies were a little squashed changing in the kitchen,but a great job was done by all. I didn't hear the talk as I was being dressed.

I think everyone enjoyed it by the laughs and applause we heard while changing.

The usual wonderful selection of food went down very well. Everyone manages to bring a great selection.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Healthy New Year.

Looking forward to seeing you in 2017.

Jacquie

November Meeting

What a lovely talk from Susan Briscoe. She showed us her beautiful quilts. We had a wonderful insight into her world of quilting. Enjoyed by all . Nice to see so many visitors.

Look forward to seeing you in December . Don't forget our faith supper, you always bring such lovely food.

Don't forget to bring show and tell.

Happy sewing 

Jacquie

The talk at the next meeting is Janet Wroe the wardrobe mistress at the Concordia Theatre

Pictures from Susan Briscoe's Sashiko workshop.

November Speaker

 Susan Briscoe will be giving us a talk entitled "From a British Tradition Textile and Folklore"

She is a designer and textile artist, author of several books and she teaches creative textile workshops.  She also sells vintage Japanese fabrics.

Her new book 'The 1718 Coverlet: 69 Quilt Blocks from the Oldest Dated British Patchwork Coverlet" (published by D & C) was launched at Festival of Quilts.  It is available from The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles in their online shop , where there's lots of lovely 1718 themed gifts and souvenirs too (Guild members get a 10% discount online as well as in the shop)... She has written this book to help raise funds for The Guild's charitable aims which includes the very important upkeep of the biggest collection of antique British patchworks, quilts and coverlets in the British Isles - you can browse the collection online and see just how amazing it is!  

More information about Susan Briscoe can be found at www.susanbriscoe.com

However her workshop is about her other love Sashiko.  

October Meeting

We had 2 wonderful workshops in September. The nightlight houses came out very well enjoyed by all, who bought kits to go home and make more. Viv's decorative felt beads turned into a very relaxing hand sewing day. Thanks to all for the organising.

It was amazing to see Maria Tomas again. I thought her work was wonderful and very inspiring. I love the combination of the different elements in her work, they blend together so well and it makes you want to go home and raid your recycle bin to find stuff to work with. Her jackets were lovely using the  table cloths with the hand embroidery and lace. Her denim jacket was just mind blowing made with parts from old jeans.

Don't forget The Big Textile Show on the 29th and 30th October being held in the Kube Oadby.

Hope to see you in November with your finished projects for us to see.

Jacquie

Examples of Maria's beautiful work

Viv's Workshop

French Knot & Bead Beauty – Viv Denscombe

Requirements List

Scraps of felt                                   )  no less than 3 ½” x 1 ½”

Scraps of fabric – silk or cotton    )  all will be seen

Iron on Vilene (lightweight)    - scraps 

Embroidery threads (stranded type weight) or silk – variegated work well

Seed beads & needle

Hand stitch equipment

Thin knitting needle (approx 2mm or fine skewer)

Everything you bring should approx fit in an A4 size bag!!

September Meeting

Our President made a visit to bequeath her Cosby Brooch to Alice Screaton. It was lovely to see Joan as she is not always able to make it.

The Talk was amazing. Anne bought her very inspiring work, and told us how her journey  got to the work that she now does. The workshop on Thursday was just as amazing. 14 of us were there and we made tealight houses using Anne's wonderful hand dyed fabrics. Everyone went home with the houses mostly finished, and some of us purchased more fabric to take home and make more. A great day was had by all.

Hope to see you in October with your show and tell and lots of Xmas work to exhibit at The Big Textile Show.

Jacquie.

Alice Screaton with Joan (Our President)

Examples of Anne's Work

Speaker for September

Our speaker for September is Anne Moore.  Her talk is entitled

"How did I get here?" 

It is a light hearted talk about her work, a look at how it has developed over the years and what continues to inspire her.

An example of her work.

Recently Anne has decided to use her married name and now wishes to be known as Anne Hellyer.

She created her website to introduce her painted and stitched textiles to a wider audience.

She loves paint and she loves textiles and she combines the two in her work.
She hand paints all the fabric she uses and then prints the finer details, and embellishes with machine stitch. Each piece is individually designed,
She creates work that is flexible - able to change location as the mood takes you!
To that end each piece is self supporting. They do not require frames - can be either free standing or wall mounted - manipulated into a shape or hung "flat".

July Meeting

The July meeting was a very enjoyable social evening and making small projects.

We all sat, chatted and went home with one or all of the lovely make and take things being shown on the evening. A big thanks to Jean, Jo and Kath for being kind enough to do the mini workshops for us.

Hope you all have a great Summer as we don't meet in August, look forward to seeing you in September with your show and tell.

Jacquie

Race for Life 10th July 2016

The stitch girls are taking part in the Race for Life on the 10th July 2016.

In previous years they have knitted squares for blankets and made flowers to create items that have been raffled at the Big Textile Show.  In the past many of our members have contributed items even though they have not taken part in the run.

This year they plan to make Tibetan Pray Flags.  The instructions for making the flags and an example are shown below.  All flags should be given to Viv Denscombe.

June Meeting

Our June meeting was very well attended, all eagerly waiting to hear Jan Hassard.  Her talk and her quilts where amazing. The beautiful work was very inspiring and those of us on her workshop the next day looked forward to starting to make our own quilts. 

Thursday morning arrived and at 10 o'clock we were given the pattern for the project we had chosen. 5 were doing the 3D quilt and 5 doing the dazzling diamonds quilt. The dazzling diamond ladies had already sewn together some strata's ready to sew the black strips to complete the strata before cutting again. 

So the 3D ladies set to sorting Lights Medium and darks, and cutting 10"​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ strips of each we began making our 3D blocks in a very clever technique. 

A wonderful workshop, and a very interesting day was had by all. Jan was a brilliant and clever teacher. Thanks Jan for the Talk and workshop.

Look forward to seeing you all for our practical evening in July. [Don't forget your sewing kit.]

Jacquie

Photos from June Meeting

Photos from Workshop

Jan Hassard's Workshop

Jan's workshop on the 2nd June is "Dazzling Diamonds".

As some of the people already booked on the course have been having trouble finding the fabric required for this workshop.  Jan has also agreed to run in tandem 3 d quilts the Honeycomb design  this can be made  small or larger and can use fat quarters or smaller pieces.  So less fabric needed. 

Jan would like to know which you are doing so that she can bring the right amount of worksheets for both workshops. So Please Let Pat Screaton know which you fancy Mob: 07860 106999

Jan is an international tutor and we are fortunate in getting her to our group for a workshop.

The workshop is being help at Cosby Community Church Croft Road, Cosby LE9  1SE  on Thursday (2nd June) 10.00 till 4.00 Bring a packed Lunch, Drinks and Biscuits will be provided. Members £22.00 and Non Members £27. Jan’s talk will be  at Cosby on the Wednesday evening (1st June) starting at 7.30, Free on your first visit.  Our membership is £20 for the year, and  reduced as the year goes on well worth joining.

May Meeting and Workshop

We had a visit from Joan Smith, who started Cosby quilters from her home over 25 years ago. Due to illness Joan had not been for a while so it was very nice to see her.

Anja gave us a wonderful talk on her work ,  it was very entertaining and a chance for us to see what we were doing on her workshop the next day.

We all eagerly turned up Thursday morning with machines  and a variety of threads ready for the day. Getting started with a copy of the chosen pattern everyone had a wonderful day using the various stitches on our machines we don't normally get to experiment with. We all copied more patterns to take home and use after the workshop. A very inspiring and enjoyable workshop.

A date has been set for the Creative Messy Play day on the 11th July.

Hope you all have a great May with the sunshine and look forward to seeing you in June for another month with 2 workshops.

Jacquie

 Anja and her beautiful work

The Raffle table

The Workshop

Anja's sample

 Samples of work from the workshop

Speaker for May Meeting

The speaker for the May Meeting is Anja Townrow.  The talk is entitled "Flower Festival"

Since the late Eighties she has developed her skills by trying out the different techniques in the by then more widely available American books and magazines.  During the early 90’s, she made many bed quilts to commission, which enabled her to learn her craft through practice and experience.  In 1993, Anja set up ‘Dutch Quilts’ when she started to sell her first patchwork kits at Craft Fairs, and her range of patterns remains available under the ‘Dutch Quilts’ label.  After teaching a weekly class for six years, Anja now travels extensively to give lectures and workshops throughout the UK and Europe.

Examples of her work

April Meeting

What a lovely relaxing workshop we  had on the Wednesday afternoon.  It was refreshing just to sit and hand sew. Gilli had some really inspiring patterns to choose from. We all got down to sewing very quickly to produce our Kantha sewing to be framed into a picture.

The evening talk by Gilli was enjoyed by all and over far to quick. Her work was beautiful and gave us insight into her sewing world.

Lovely to see you all. Have a super month, plenty of sewing for next months show and tell.

Jacquie

Chris Yates Teabag Workshop

Teabag Workshop 11th June 2016

Details of the workshop can be found on the workshop page.

Jan Hassard Workshop

Dazzling Diamonds

In the workshop create dazzling diamond patterns with a contemporary look using strata and colour with a unique technique that she has devised.

Details of the workshop can be found on the workshop page.

Anja Townroe - Workshop

Anja Townroe - Quilting, Embroidery and Embellishing

Choice of 6 projects. Use new threads and stitches and pick up lots of quilting tips. Gain confidence to introduce new sparkle into your quilts

Details of the workshop can be found on the workshop page.